A group of four snowboarders has sued Utah’s Alta ski area to overturn the resort’s longstanding ban on snowboarding.

The Wasatch Equality group on Wednesday filed the 26-page lawsuit in Utah’s U.S. District Court, targeting both Alta and the Forest Service, arguing the prohibition of snowboarders is based on prejudice against the single-plankers and violates the Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause.

U.S. Snowboarding’s leading slopestyle snowboarder Chas Guldemond practices last week at the Breckenridge Grand Prix, where a blizzard cancelled snowboard slopestyle and halfpipe events. The contests will be held this week at California’s Mammoth Mountain. (Photo by Ezra Shaw, Getty Images

U.S. halfpipe and slopestyle snowboarders have a huge week ahead of them. They will compete in three Olympic qualifying contests at California’s Mammoth Mountain over four days this weekend as they fight to make the Olympic teams.

Grete Eliassen of the United States skis to third place in the women’s FIS Slopestyle Ski World Cup at the U.S. Snowboarding and Freeskiing Grand Prix on December 21, 2013 in Copper Mountain, Colorado. (Photo by Doug Pensinger/Getty Images)

Bad weather is dangerous for men and women slopestyle skiers and snowboarders. But the lighter women, who fight to maintain essential speed to clear big jumps, are especially at risk on courses with only one take-off jump. Those single lips are big, designed mostly to hurl speedy men into the sky so they can spin as many as four times while flipping two or three times.

The Dew Tour in Breckenridge last weekend was the first step toward Olympic glory and delivered the first glimpse of who could represent the U.S. in the Sochi Winter Games, where ski and snowboard slopestyle as well as ski halfpipe will debut. Skiers have three more Olympic-qualifying contests in Copper Mountain, Park City in Utah and Northstar in California. Snowboarders will compete at this week’s Copper Grand Prix and then Northstar before a final weeklong sprint with two halfpipe and slopestyle finals at Mammoth Mountain in California in mid January.

Shaun White’s monster first air is always the highest hit in halfpipe contests and Saturday’s Dew Tour competition was no different. New Olympic rules no longer require a straight air.

The Dew Tour, unlike formal FIS Olympic qualifiers, never required a straight air in the snowboard halfpipe contest. This year, however, skiing and snowboarding’s international governing body has decided that snowboarding athletes do not need to throw a straight air in their runs. So Saturday’s Dew Tour saw athletes spinning double-corks and big spins on the first hit.

“It’s going to be funny seeing fewer straight airs, which is nice. I think you should have the freedom to do whatever you want,” said Louie Vito, who spun a floaty 540 on his first hit and finished fourth.

Shaun White crashes during his first run as he went on to finish second in the men’s snowboard superpipe final at the Dew Tour iON Mountain Championships on Dec. 14, 2013 in Breckenridge, Colorado. (Doug Pensinger, Getty Images)

So maybe they aren’t untouchable.

Both Shaun White and Kelly Clark took rare tumbles in the halfpipe Saturday during the Dew Tour finals at Breckenridge. And competitors took advantage of the opportunity to best the best, stepping up with strong runs in what became a day of upsets in the halfpipe.

Bouncing back from a 2012 injury, Mammoth Mountain’s Greg Bretz — a 2010 member of the U.S. Olympic halfpipe squad — threw down a dominant first run that held throughout the best-of-two-runs contest Saturday morning.

Shaun White’s anticipated slopestyle debut at Breckenridge’s Dew Tour shined bright on Friday, with the snowboarding kingpin locking down a top qualifying spot heading into Sunday’s finals.
The halfpipe wizard is aiming to compete in both slopestyle and halfpipe in the Sochi Winter Olympics. That’s not an issue in the pipe, where the 27-year-old is untouchable. He easily qualified in the top spot for Saturday’s Dew Tour halfpipe finals.

Slopestyle is another story for White, who has been eclipsed in recent contests by powerful Canadians like Sebastien Toutant and Mark McMorris. White dashed any doubts on Friday, with a solid run that featured unwavering double-cork trickery, but not the triple-corks that earned McMorris a Dew Tour title last year.

For several years, Angeli VanLaanen thought her podium days were over.
The 28-year-old halfpipe skier from Bellingham, Wash., was constantly fatigued. On bad days, joint pain left her unable to crawl from bed. Befuddled doctors treated her for a variety of illnesses. Four years ago, after 14 years of misdiagnosis, she was tested for Lyme disease.

“The symptoms are so varied and mimic other conditions. It confuses doctors,” she said.

After three years of grueling treatment, the buoyant athlete’s Lyme disease is in remission. She’s fighting to regain her top-tier position in freesking after three years without competing. It’s a fight she’s winning: the top qualifier climbed onto the halfpipe podium Friday at the Dew Tour halfpipe finals with a fluid, technical final run earned her silver.

Shaun White soars to the top qualifying spot in Thursday’s halfpipe contest at the Breckenridge Dew Tour. Photo by Jason Blevins

For the first days of this Olympic season, even the athletes most eager to shine in Sochi’s Winter Games took tentative steps toward their goal.
There wasn’t any double-cork 1260s or triple-cork 1440s at the Dew Tour in Breckenridge on Thursday. While some powerhouses (and the two youngest competitors at Dew) prevailed, several celebrated athletes did not pass through qualifying rounds.

Canadian pipe skier Roz Groenewoud – the 2011 world champion and two-time Winter X Games gold medalist – fell shy of the top eight finalists in Wednesday’s qualifying contest. Grete Elliassen, a perennial slopestyle champion recovering from a 2012 knee injury, dropped from qualifying after falling on her first run. Henrik Harlaut, the always grinning Swede with the most audacious tricks in slopestyle, bobbled a landing on Thursday and failed to make Sunday’s finals. Olympic gold medal snowboarder Hannah Teter didn’t make the finals.

“Nothing represents Americana more than handcrafted patchwork quilts and the American flag.”

Burton women’s Olympic Competition jacket

That’s from Burton, which unveiled the 2014 U.S. Snowboarding Team uniforms on Wednesday. The Vermont-based company – which pretty much owns snowboarding, with a majority share of all snowboard, binding and apparel sales – has outfitted Olympic snowboarders in the 2006 and 2010 Winter Olympics. For 2014, Burton went old-school. As in handcrafted, quilting old-school.

Burton designers drew their jacket inspiration from a vintage quilt they discovered at an antique fair. A “veteran Vermont quilt maker” refined the design and it was replicated using high-end fabrics, Burton’s own waterproofing laminate and a breathable membrane.

The hand-stitched look, coupled with waterproofed corduroy pants “give the uniform a ‘heirloom hippy’ vibe that lines up with snowboarding’s laid-back culture while paying respect to America’s longstanding creative heritage,” said Greg Dacyshyn, Chief Creative Officer at Burton Snowboards, in a statement. “It will stand out in Sochi for sure.”

Italy’s Werner Heel adjust his boots at the bottom of the Centennial Lift before a free ski for the men’s downhill World Cup race in Beaver Creek. The training session was canceled. (Getty Images)

BEAVER CREEK — Weather has caused major adjustments to the men’s World Cup schedule here this week.

Tuesday’s downhill training run was cancelled because some teams encountered travel problems getting here after competing last weekend in Lake Louise, Alberta. And because significant snow is in the forecast, the downhill scheduled for Saturday will be run Friday. The super-G scheduled for Friday will be run Saturday.

Lindsey Vonn has not been made available to ski racing media since she re-injured her right knee training at Copper Mountain last week, but on Wednesday she spoke with Matt Lauer on NBC’s Today Show. Here is a partial transcript:

The skier, who turned 22 in October, was renowned for his fluid style in gnarly urban settings – spinning down brick walls and grinding steel handrails over concrete lightly dusted with snow. He filmed regularly with Boulder’s Stept Productions, a collective of skiers and film editors who trumpet the unorthodox urban ski scene with feisty flicks of rogue skiers beating down traditional, mountaintop images of skiing. Warnick defined that skier, with an individual flair and a penchant for shenanigans that floated his popularity.

Shaun White’s sponsor GoPro has sculpted a private halfpipe in Australia for the snowboarder as he trains for the Sochi Winter Olympics. Photo courtesy to The Denver Post by GoPro

It worked last time.

Shaun White, the perennial king of snowboard halfpipe, has again enlisted his sponsor GoPro to sculpt a private halfpipe in Australia as the 27-year-old aims for this third Olympic pipe gold in the Sochi Winter Games next February.

“GoPro worked with Snow Park Technologies to build a custom halfpipe and slopestyle features for Shaun’s Olympic training. GoPro and SPT scouted many locations across the globe, the spot in Australia was chosen based upon conditions and timing,” said GoPro spokeswoman Katie Kilbride.

California’s Snow Park Technologies is the same outfit that builds the 22-foot X Games superpipe at Aspen’s Buttermilk ski area, where the greatest competitive snowboarder has won a record six consecutive gold medals.

Friends and family have organized a fundraising bowl-a-thon to pay for a memorial sign honoring Joe Timlin, Chris Peters, Rick Gaukel, Ian Lamphere and Ryan Novak at the trailhead that climbs into the Sheep Creek drainage where they died.

Joe Timlin was one of five men killed in the April 20 avalanche near Loveland Pass.

Tickets for the Sunday Oct. 20 event at the AMF Englewood Lanes (4900 South Federal Blvd.) are available at the “Remembering Joe Timlin” Facebook page for $15 for adults, $5 for kids or at the door for $20 and $10. A silent auction includes a skateboard, Zeal Optic’s new HD Camera goggles, custom jewelry, hotel nights, spa services and a football signed by John Elway.

Shaun White warms up during the men’s snowboard superpipe final in January 2013 at Aspen’s Buttermilk ski area. (AAron Ontiveroz, The Denver Post)

That didn’t last long.

Eighteen months after ESPN trumpeted a global expansion that doubled the number of its events – with first-ever summer X Games in Barcelona, Munich and Foz do Iguaçu, Brazil – the company has ended its international blitz.

On Thursday the network announced it was nixing all international X Games events, including the four-year old Winter X Games in Tignes, France, and dropping the suddenly-dead “Global X” plan from six contests to two, with only Aspen and Austin remaining.

Park City, Utah — New sports for the 2014 Sochi Olympics include slopestyle skiing and snowboarding and halfpipe skiing. Freesking icon Tom Wallisch spoke for many slopestyle skiers at the Olympic Media Summit Tuesday when he said he can hardly believe his sport will be part of the Olympics next February.

“It’s kind of crazy,” said Wallisch, who is from Pittsburgh. “None of us ever grew up dreaming of going to the Olympics. The X Games and going out skiing with your friends was kind of all you could ever accomplish. It wasn’t like a world-famous sport. It’s always been more of a hobby. I got my start making videos of doing this kind of skiing, out in the cities and in the backcountry, in the park, putting out those videos and getting known for that. To go from being a kid, weekend warrior, skiing two days a week on the East Coast to being able to say, ‘Our sport’s going to be in the Olympics,’ to legitimize it like that, it’s amazing. It’s a crazy turn of events, something I never would have dreamed of. None of us every had that dream. I feel like it’s blowing my mind every day that we’re going to have a chance like this.”

Park City, Utah — Five-time Olympic medalist Bode Miller sat out last season because of microfracture surgery on his left knee in early 2012, but he says he was able to ski without pain at a recent U.S. Ski Team training camp in Portillo, Chile.

“My knee has been a work in progress, I guess,” Miller said Monday at the Olympic Media Summit, a media event focusing on the Sochi Games in February. “It was great down in Portillo, I had no pain and was skiing with high intensity — within reason. I had been off snow quite a bit, so I wasn’t really taking a lot of risks. At this point the one thing in an Olympic season that you do have to be a little more cognizant about is risk management. It’s easy to make stupid mistakes in the summer training.”

Friday, May 24, was the first full day of Independence Pass skiing this spring and the Roaring Fork Valley’s backcountry tribe rallied. Dozens of groups carved silky lines from dawn to dusk over the weekend, with near perfect coverage and smooth spring corn. The line off Mountain Boy Peak was spectacular.